The Cease & Desist Cha Cha

Four months after the Federal Trade Commission accused him of boosting his $45 million-a-year business by deception and coercion (TIME, April 11), Dancer Arthur Murray cha-chaed his way out of the jam, hardly stubbing his toes. He agreed last week to an FTC consent order "to cease and desist" the practices, thus avoided a tough day in court and the prospect of even more damaging publicity. In exchange, the FTC closed its case.

The consent order, which is not technically an admission of guilt, forces the Arthur Murray studios to abandon most of their now famous promotional schemes. These included telephone calls asking prospects to name two former U.S. presidents who were once generals, "Lucky Buck" contests soliciting dollar bills whose serial numbers included a five and a zero, and zodiac-and crossword-puzzle contests. All offered free dance lessons as a reward for the right answers, but the FTC charged that the contests were too easy to be genuine, were used as bait with which high-pressure Murray salesmen conned prospects into signing up for added courses.

A grand jury in Denver last week concluded that ballroom-dance studios in the area are guilty of "immoral, illegal and bloodsucking" tactics in the sale of huge lesson contracts to students. Dance-studio personnel, said the grand jury indignantly, are often "buzzards" who "employed very unethical means of inducing persons to enroll in dance classes."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.